Why do withdrawals restart where they left off?

[limestoneman]

Why is it that if I quit dope for say three weeks, and then I do it again for a week or two, I get sick again?

Also, how come people overdose off of less dope after they've suffered an overdose?

[upstate_007]

Sucks don't it?

If there is one thing I have learned it's that there is no going back to square one once you have had a habit. Tolerance never seems to go back to zero no matter how long you are clean for. It may lower quite a bit, but it also seems to jump back up quicker. Nature of the beast I suppose.

[Duckfeet]

Yep: I don't know of any studies or anything...and so much of what we learn and live by, in the life, is just anecdotal info from other people...but I found the same thing, that I got habits *really* easy, the longer I was at this...even a 3 day round the clock run will give me a week of serious withdrawals...if I can even quit, which often I can't...

And at the same time my tolerance increased always and forever it seems...and I laugh now, at drugs that others get all excited about...that *I* once got all excited about, like hydrocodone, oxycodone, and even morphine sulfate...nothing...

Oh sure, if I've been off dope a while--like a *year* I'll feel pills and shit...for about a week, then I'm not only strungout...but my tolerance immediately shoots back up to unbelievable levels...

that's what I think is really happening here....

No Free Lunch...

[blutuesday]

This shit always happens to me. I mean, the longest clean time for me in ALMOST a decade was 32 days. I used immediately and got sick in like one day. No exaggeration.

I asked a methadone doc about this (for what methadone clinic doc is worth) and he said something like opiate muscle memory. That is not what he said, before someone rips my head off and says there is no such thing, but it was something to that effect.

Annnnnnnnyway, its like, if me and another person who had never used opies, and I had a year clean time, we both began at once and used the same amoutn for the same period of time, Id catch a habit sooner than them. That is besides the fact that everyone is different. But yall know what I mean.

[Duckfeet]

We were just talking about overdeveloped Mu Receptors on another thread, being all buffed out and shit...I figure the serious chemsts are still sleeping, and will soon wake up and spank all of us for our ignorance...so join the crowd :p

I think any longterm opiate addict knows its *something* like what you posted, and most terminology--IM not so HO-is just metaphor...same as words like ego and subconscious, and now we talk about endorphins and receptors the same way...we don't know what we're talking about, really...

Methadone muscle works for me...damn sure seems buffed out to the max in my sorry case...and I know about those 1-2 day habits...just doesn't seem possible...but longtime junkies know we gotta leave *reason (whatever that is)* behind sometimes, just to face the simple facts of our troubled existence...

This shit always happens to me. I mean, the longest clean time for me in ALMOST a decade was 32 days. I used immediately and got sick in like one day. No exaggeration.

I asked a methadone doc about this (for what methadone clinic doc is worth) and he said something like opiate muscle memory. That is not what he said, before someone rips my head off and says there is no such thing, but it was something to that effect.

Annnnnnnnyway, its like, if me and another person who had never used opies, and I had a year clean time, we both began at once and used the same amoutn for the same period of time, Id catch a habit sooner than them. That is besides the fact that everyone is different. But yall know what I mean.

[chemboy7]

Oh sure, if I've been off dope a while--like a *year* I'll feel pills and shit...for about a week, then I'm not only strungout...but my tolerance immediately shoots back up to unbelievable levels...

that's what I think is really happening here....

No Free Lunch...

Sounds about right to me DF. I have been off Heroin and Morphine (and about anything else worth getting out of bed for) since last winter, atleast, and recently went to have a tooth extracted. I honestly wasn't even expecting pain releif, let alone a buzz, off the Codeine I was prescribed but I swear I was almost nodding off a handful of them. So then I go to the oral surgen to get 5 more teeth cut out of my skull about a month and a half later thinking "healing is going to be a bitch, but atleast I get more pills"... no such luck, did not feel anything from CWE'ing the whole script of hydros. Pissed me off.

[nhop]

Once one has become physically dependent on opiates, there is a chemical memory at work which means that a habit can be picked up again very quickly, even after years of clean time.

There was even a saying on the streets, back when I first started: it takes 3 days to get a habit. I've found this to be generally true. My first habit didnt assert itself for probably 6 months of decreasingly casual use, but after that, I would feel definitely uncomfortable after as little as a 3 day binge.

I am now on a low dose of suboxone, but last week had a one day detour back on the H. I swear I noticed some definite (ie, more than pshycosomatic) symptoms the following day after ONE day of H use.

[Duckfeet]

This is one of the reasons I'm so glad for Opiophile...as for the longest time I *didn't* really know what was happening, and why drugs didn't work, and even would overdose because I'd figure I could do *any* amount of drugs and not feel them...which in the case of the more powerful opiates, wasn't true...even tho I didn't get much *buzz* anymore (euphoria)...I still could check out on the suckers...and I still thought like I did in the beginning: that it would take about a *month* to get a habit...but that was just in the beginning...after that...the 3 day rule applies...or even *less* if I get enough opys to do 2-3 times a day...then I'm doomed...once again...

[blutuesday]

Once one has become physically dependent on opiates, there is a chemical memory at work which means that a habit can be picked up again very quickly, even after years of clean time.

There was even a saying on the streets, back when I first started: it takes 3 days to get a habit. I've found this to be generally true. My first habit didnt assert itself for probably 6 months of decreasingly casual use, but after that, I would feel definitely uncomfortable after as little as a 3 day binge.

I am now on a low dose of suboxone, but last week had a one day detour back on the H. I swear I noticed some definite (ie, more than pshycosomatic) symptoms the following day after ONE day of H use.

SEE! I knew it was something memory, Not opiod muscle memory but chemical memory. I think that is what that doc said in fact.

[OxyContinuously]

yeah i hear that DF

if i am clean for a while, then i get something, and if i use maybe once a day, i can go for about three, four days of using once per day before i get any WD symptoms

but if the same situation presents itself and i get loaded two, three, four times a day, then i find that i am in BIG trouble by the third day!

[red26]

I know that opiates effect our muscles and nerves from what my old doctor had told me. From what I sifted thru its something along the lines of making them hyper sensitive. I have a literal shit-ton of nerve problems and alot of it can be attributed to L.T. opiate use, according to what he told me. Before anyone jumps on his case(tho he was a dick) he blamed other doctors for keeping me so jacked up for so long on meds.

[The_Highwayman]

I have been clean for 9 months (hold the applause) excpet for about 4 times when I used some roxi's and samck....about 1 mont hago after three months of NOTHING but subs I used for literally 24 hours of some not-so-great dope and it took me a whole week to recover and not talking about REAL WD's but enough to feel crappy 24/7 and anytime I Ever laid down I would fall asleep for a couple of hours, constantly tired and the sweats, I was sweating like crazy even 5 days AFTER I had last used and was back to my sub schedule...

[Duckfeet]

I never have been able to get off subs, and stay off, by day 3 I got too sick...that's why I went back to methadone, since at least that one, I knew I had gotten off before, successfully ... everybody's different tho...


I have been clean for 9 months (hold the applause) excpet for about 4 times when I used some roxi's and samck....about 1 mont hago after three months of NOTHING but subs I used for literally 24 hours of some not-so-great dope and it took me a whole week to recover and not talking about REAL WD's but enough to feel crappy 24/7 and anytime I Ever laid down I would fall asleep for a couple of hours, constantly tired and the sweats, I was sweating like crazy even 5 days AFTER I had last used and was back to my sub schedule...

[robojunkie]

Yeah, anything like 24 hours of use is enough for a habit now. I mean not one shot of course just multiples in aday, bang sick again. Cruelty of neurological homeostasis, the bane of all junkies. Simple paradigm the brain is physically lazy and giving it opiates means it can do less work maintainin its structural composition. Stop though and that gray fucking nexus has to get a kick in the ass and get growing again, receptors that is.

[smack man]

Yea I went a year clean of opiates, then as soon as I started I was up to 150+mg of oxy or 1/2 gram of H per day. And it only took me about 5 days to catch a nasty habit. I did manage to slow down with some suboxone but it was a rough ride. It's true that the more times you've been trough it the easier it is to get back to it. When i first started messing with pills, i would go a few roxies a day for weeks and then just stop with only minor pains. Now less than a week and i am ready to go to the hospital from the withdrawls. So beware, the monkey on your back only gets bigger and stronger!

[SimFromStafford]

Yea I went a year clean of opiates, then as soon as I started I was up to 150+mg of oxy or 1/2 gram of H per day. And it only took me about 5 days to catch a nasty habit. I did manage to slow down with some suboxone but it was a rough ride. It's true that the more times you've been trough it the easier it is to get back to it. When i first started messing with pills, i would go a few roxies a day for weeks and then just stop with only minor pains. Now less than a week and i am ready to go to the hospital from the withdrawls. So beware, the monkey on your back only gets bigger and stronger!

i keep my back coated in subutex laced grease. the fuckin monkey might keep tryin to get on my back but the fucker ain't stayin there...

[SurfRat]

I kind of see it like if you made a basin out of dirt, around a tree.
Here in SoCal where water is expensive, you might do that to conserve water.

The point is that you can fill the *basin* with water right up to the edge and you are ok.
But if you forget, and leave the water running...
The basin overflows and some of the dirt washes away.
Maybe a little, maybe a lot, maybe just in one spot.
But after that, you know, you can't fill it up, like you used to.

Not sure how that exactly applies to neurons and dendrites but a lot of things in nature have that overflow/floodgate kind of quality.

[DCBA]

i think they just restart from the begining instead of restarting where they left off.

[lynzee]

Yeah, I've heard that our cells all have "memory receptors" and even though our cells die, they always make an exact copy of the cell they replicated from, therefore, your cells always "remember" the lovely opiates. though I've always wondered if someone actually went a full decade with no opiates whatsoever, if they would still have more of a tolerance than they did the first time they ever tried

[Narkotikon]

I really don't know. I would like to think it has something to do with memory. When you use opiates, your brain learns to associate that pleasure /reward with the drug, and you keep doing it. Kind of like lab rats self-administering cocaine. You learn to associate the drug as a reward. And, of course, the more your brain has exogenous opiates in it, it doesn't have to produce it's own, so your brain becomes dependent on it. Then, when it stops, the brain gets a shock and takes a while to produce it's own again.

I honestly don't know if it's even possible to get back to normal once you quit, if you can quit. For me, the main reason why I keep using is to prevent w/d. I can't stand being sick. But, if by chance I can get past the sickness, the craving and the boredome does me in. Everything is just grey, lifeless, boring. I have no pleasure in anything. Everything feels like work.

This is why I don't understand why some people are so against maintenance. Yes, it would be nice if people could just quit and not think about it anymore, and never use again. But, it just doesn't work that way. Yes, people have quit, but I often feel like they've just found another, more socially acceptable, addiction. Ever wonder why some people in recovery are such asshole, control freaks? I think they get off on the power trip. "Oh, I'm not using anymore, I'm better." That's the same as saying addiction is a moral disease in my mind, because they're comparing themselves to "lesser" people to try to say they're above it all.

Simple fact is that once you're dependent, you NEED the opiates to feel normal. Simple as that. Anyone who says differently is flat out lying or stupid because they don't know what they're talking about. And when I say normal, I don't mean high. I mean normal. You need the drugs to feel normal. And I can't stand it when people who have no idea what being addicted / dependent is like, start spouting off bullshit about how you should just stop. Hey, bitch, can you just stop doing whatever it is you do? Telling me to stop opiates when I'm dependent on them is like telling the sun not to rise, or the moon not to have it's phases. Just isn't going to happen.

And I don't feel like I should be punished for that, even if I did do it to myself. People smoke and get cancer, or eat too much food / sweets and get diabetes. No one would EVER think to tell these people that they can't get meds for that, but because I"m an addict I don't get what I need. Fucking bullshit! I don't deal drugs. I don't own a gun. I don't commit robberies or muggings or whore myself out for drug money. I don't fuck people over. I sit at home and do my opiates, and when I'm not sick, I can function a normal life, take care of myself, do what I need to do. Why is that such a bad thing? I will never understand why some people are against maintenance.